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Saturday, 9 April 2016

Hannan’s New EU Whoppers Busted

As part of the paper’s totally unbiased coverage of the EU Referendum campaign, the Mail has given a platform to Dan, Dan The Oratory Man to make a number of highly creative claims under the headline “Please, please sack me! Euro MP DANIEL HANNAN on the money and perks he gets from Brussels for making Britons' lives harder... and why he is begging the nation to have the courage to put him out of a job”.

What am I bid for this article? Yes Sir, the bid's with you

Hannan’s bullet points give a flavour of his article, and also his tendency to dishonesty. So, in the interests of balance, the kind of word that causes the Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor to have traps put down, Zelo Street will now demonstrate why he is bringing forth nothing more than another steaming pile of bullpucky.

“Instead of democracy, we’re governed by unelected officials who reach their decisions in secret, often after being lobbied by vested interests”. Not true: the final decisions are made by the European Parliament, which is directly elected. That’s not instead of democracy, it IS democracy.

“Instead of personal liberty, we have a mass of pettifogging regulation that makes us poorer and less free”. Opinion, and false equivalence: personal liberty is not necessarily eroded by regulation.

“Again and again the EU has pursued regulation as an end in itself - not in response to a specific need, but as a step towards federation”. Opinion, but with added scaremongering.

“Why should it be up to Brussels to ban traditional light bulbs and oblige us to have the dimmer sort (many imported from China, at great cost to the environment)?” Brussels has not banned anything. The measure was agreed by member states in the European Parliament (see above) as part of a wider package of moves to save energy. The “dimmer” claim is fallacious, and once again, no citation on the China claim. But good to see he cares for the environment.

“End of weekly recycling collections? That’s the EU’s Landfill directive”. Not true. That’s down to local authority budget constraints, and recycling, Dan, is the stuff that does NOT go into landfill. Have a think about it.

“The ban on minimum alcohol pricing? That’s the EU’s Technical Standards Directive”. Not true. There is no ban on minimum alcohol pricing - see HERE.

“For the sake of the 10 per cent of our economy that is linked to the EU, we must apply 100 per cent of EU rules to 100 per cent of our business”. Let’s take this nice and slowly, shall we? How much d’you think it would cost to run two different sets of regulations in order to satisfy Hannan’s ideological impulses? Who would draw up and implement those Good Old British standards, and how much extra would it cost us?

“European integration was supposed to make people wealthier, but the EU has fallen from 30 per cent of the world economy in 1980 to 17 per cent today”. False equivalence. The implication is that the EU has caused a reduction in living standards, but this assumes the rest of the world remains as it was in 1980. Given recent growth rates in countries like China and India, that assumption does not hold.

“Without doing anything improper, an MEP who makes full use of his allowances can take home, net, considerably more than the British Prime Minister”. False equivalence. The PM gets his security, transport and a central London house (ie 10 Downing Street) thrown in. An MEP does not.

Membership of the EU brings its irritations, but it will do Daniel Hannan’s cause no good if he continues to be passionate and committed, but flagrantly dishonest.

Increased wealth is a different issue from an increase in the share of the world economy. Basic mathematics. This just means that China and India have grown faster than the EU. But they have grown more than the USA and Japan too.